LESSONS FROM 70 YEARS OF MINISTRY: ‘WHAT I HAVE RECEIVED I PASSED ON TO YOU AS OF FIRST IMPORTANCE.’ (PART 7) AVAILABLE ON ITUNES, SPOTIFY, GOOGLE PODCASTS, YOUTUBE.
God desires for you to live in health: to live a full satisfying life. Sickness is from the devil. Jesus said, “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). I want you to receive those words deep in your spirit: to be settled on the truth of God’s Word. And until the day when your healing has fully manifested, know that His grace is sufficient, that He is all you need: His strength is made perfect in weakness. The Word says, ‘I am the Lord who heals you!’
God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. (Acts 10:38, NKJV)
Doubt is one of the devil’s biggest weapons against believers. Satan did not say to Eve in the garden, ‘Eat those apples. God does not mind.’ he sowed doubt: ‘Did God say no?’ Today he uses the same doubt to destroy God’s authority and take us out of the blessing that God has given us.
Now He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He marveled because of their unbelief. Then He went about the villages in a circuit, teaching. (Mark 6:5-6, NKJV)
Not all who are prayed for are healed. Can God be equally glorified in Christians who are not healed?
Yes, He can: the Apostle Paul prayed three times for God to remove his ‘thorn’ but God said, ‘My grace is sufficient; My strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Sickness is not God’s perfect will. When Jesus saw a woman who was bowed down for 18 years, He asked, “Ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound - think of it - for eighteen years, be loosed?” Jesus laid His hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God (Luke 13:10-16).
God did not want Eve to doubt. She lived in God’s paradise, but because she doubted God’s Word, she spent her life under the influence of evil and her son was murdered. But God in mercy provided a final redemption because He loved her! I understand the problem in people’s minds - we don’t see everyone healed and it grieves me deeply - but this is the challenge which leads me to seek stronger faith to bring more healing, not to reject God’s deliverance! Jesus commanded us to both preach the Gospel AND heal the sick (Luke 9:2). These two are inseparable. The healing of the sick is the demonstration of the Gospel - see Matthew 9:6 where Jesus said to the onlookers, ‘But that you may know that the Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins.’ He said to the sick of the palsy, ‘Arise, take up your bed and walk.’
Is sickness part of the ‘cross’ we must carry?
The cross that Jesus carried was not sickness, but rejection, torture and death! The cross He asked us to carry is not sickness, but the persecution, hardship, rejection and even death that follow being His disciples and preaching His Gospel (Matthew 10:38; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23 & 14:27). Will you carry that cross? Then get rid of your sickness or you will never be fit to carry it! Jesus was no sick feeble Man, but the strongest, fittest Man who has ever lived! That must be your ideal.
Matthew 8:16-17 tells us that Jesus healed all who were sick, to fulfil that which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, ‘Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.’ So even at the time of the actual ministry of Jesus, the Bible says that Christ’s atonement for our sin is also His atonement for sickness and disease; that the cross He carried was our healing. Sin and sickness are not from God. Both come from the devil. The purpose of the first coming of Jesus was to make a way of escape from the evil which Satan and ultimately man, by his disobedience, brought into the world: ‘For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, to destroy the works of the devil!’ (1 John 3:8).
Is my sickness God’s punishment for my sin? Perhaps He is teaching me something.
No! Just as God forgives sin, instantly, He wants to heal you, NOW! God loves you! When Jesus healed blind Bartimaeus, the religious leaders asked, ‘Who sinned, this man or his parents?’ Jesus said it was neither! If God were to punish us now for every sin or mistake, then none of us would have a chance! Yes, there is a day of judgment, but for those of us who have received salvation, our sin is forgiven because of the sacrifice of Jesus. To say that our sickness is God’s punishment for our sin denies the truth of the Bible, which says Christ has already paid the price of sin for us! It’s the devil who brings sin and sickness into your life. God has made a provision in Jesus to deal with both!
What about those who are not healed, or who are healed and then lose their healing? Aren’t you afraid they will be disappointed and lose their faith? Wouldn’t it be better not to pray?
If I believed this, I would not even preach the Gospel! Not all will be healed, and some may lose their healing. Not because it is God’s way. But because the devil tempts them, or other deceive them into believing that ‘it cannot last’. Also, many are like the nine lepers who were healed and do not return to give thanks. Only one leper was made whole through His praise and thanksgiving.
Not everyone is healed; but this is not God’s perfect will. It is even recorded of Jesus that in His own country ‘He could do no mighty works because of their unbelief’. Then in Matthew 17, when the disciples could not heal the epileptic boy, the father complained to Jesus, who instantly healed him. The disciples came to Jesus privately and asked, ‘Why couldn’t we heal him?’ Jesus did not compromise. He said, ‘Lack of faith!’ Not on the part of the child, but the disciples. It does not take enormous faith to move mountains, but child-like, seed-like faith of a simple believer.
I often go home and grieve more over ones I don’t see healed, than I rejoice over the miracles I do see. It only drives me once more to fast and pray for more Holy Spirit power, to be more like Jesus in my ministry. Jesus preached the Gospel - so I do; Jesus healed the sick - so I do.
Are you opposed to traditional medicine?
No I am not. My desire is for everyone to be well, whether that is through medicine or the healing touch of Jesus. We must be wise and seek the appropriate treatment for our condition. If I have a toothache, I go to the dentist; and yes, I wear spectacles. If I have a health problem, I visit the doctor. If an issue is diagnosed, then I know what to pray for specifically; and until the time my healing is confirmed, then I continue under the necessary medical supervision.
I believe that with God, prevention is better than cure, so we should not mistreat our bodies, which can cause sickness and poor health. Often when people come to me to be prayed for, I can recognise, without medical training, that their problem is due to either a wrong lifestyle or an emotional burden which needs resolving. If you smoke, you are more likely to get lung cancer. If you eat the wrong foods, you run the risk of diabetes and other associated problems. Yes, God can heal you, but I recommend a healthy diet can mean prevention rather than cure.
Now a woman, having a flow of blood for twelve years, who had spent all her livelihood on physicians and could not be healed by any, came from behind and touched the border of His garment. And immediately her flow of blood stopped… And [Jesus] said to her, “Daughter, be of good cheer; your faith has made you well. Go in peace.” (Luke 8:43-48, NKJV)
I love to see God heal people the doctors cannot help! To me, the ‘real’ miracles of healing are when doctors have tried to heal and were unable, then God takes over and by a miracle does what the most expert of doctors cannot do.
“I am the LORD who heals you” (Exodus 15:26, NKJV)
‘God Answers Prayer’ used by kind permission www.vinesong.com